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Secrets of 1957 Sputnik launch revealed
Yahoo News / AP ^ | October 1, 2007 | VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

Posted on 09/30/2007 8:40:32 PM PDT by Stoat

Secrets of 1957 Sputnik launch revealed

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago
 

MOSCOW - When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph.

But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the founders of the Soviet space program.

In a series of interviews in recent days with The Associated Press, Chertok and other veterans told the little-known story of how Sputnik was launched, and what an unlikely achievement it turned out to be.

Chertok couldn't whisper a word about the project through much of his lifetime. His name, and that of Sergei Korolyov, the chief scientist, were a state secret. Today, at age 95 and talking to a small group of reporters in Moscow, Chertok can finally give full voice to his pride at the pivotal role he played in the history of space exploration.

"Each of these first rockets was like a beloved woman for us," he said. "We were in love with every rocket, we desperately wanted it to blast off successfully. We would give our hearts and souls to see it flying."

This very rational exuberance, and Korolyov's determination, were the key to Sputnik's success.

So was happenstance.

As described by the former scientists, the world's first orbiter was born out of a very different Soviet program: the frantic development of a rocket capable of striking the United States with a hydrogen bomb.

Because there was no telling how heavy the warhead would be, its R-7 ballistic missile was built with thrust to spare — "much more powerful than anything the Americans had," Georgy Grechko, a rocket engineer and cosmonaut, told AP.

The towering R-7's high thrust and payload capacity, unmatched at the time, just happened to make it the perfect vehicle to launch an object into orbit — something never done before.

Without the looming nuclear threat, Russian scientists say, Sputnik would probably have gotten off the ground much later.

"The key reason behind the emergence of Sputnik was the Cold War atmosphere and our race against the Americans," Chertok said. "The military missile was the main thing we were thinking of at the moment."

When the warhead project hit a snag, Korolyov, the father of the Soviet space program, seized the opportunity.

Korolyov, both visionary scientist and iron-willed manager, pressed the Kremlin to let him launch a satellite. The U.S. was already planning such a move in 1958, he pointed out, as part of the International Geophysical Year.

But while the government gave approval in January 1956, the military brass wanted to keep the missile for the bomb program, Grechko, 76, said in an interview. "They treated the satellite as a toy, a silly fantasy of Korolyov."

The U.S. had its own satellite program, Grechko said. "The Americans proudly called their project 'Vanguard,' but found themselves behind us."

The Soviet Union already had a full-fledged scientific satellite in development, but it would take too long to complete, Korolyov knew. So he ordered his team to quickly sketch a primitive orbiter. It was called PS-1, for "Prosteishiy Sputnik" — the Simplest Satellite.

Grechko, who calculated the trajectory for the first satellite's launch, said he and other young engineers tried to persuade Korolyov to pack Sputnik with some scientific instruments. Korolyov refused, saying there was no time.

"If Korolyov had listened to us and started putting more equipment on board, the Americans could have opened the space era," Grechko said.

The satellite, weighing just 184 pounds, was built in less than three months. Soviet designers built a pressurized sphere of polished aluminum alloy with two radio transmitters and four antennas. An earlier satellite project envisaged a cone shape, but Korolyov preferred the sphere.

"The Earth is a sphere, and its first satellite also must have a spherical shape," Chertok, a longtime deputy of Korolyov, recalled him saying.

Sputnik's surface was polished to perfection to better deflect the sun's rays and avoid overheating.

The launch was first scheduled for Oct. 6. But Korolyov suspected that the U.S. might be planning a launch a day earlier. The KGB was asked to check, and reported turning up nothing.

Korolyov was taking no chances. He immediately canceled some last-minute tests and moved up the launch by two days, to Oct. 4, 1957.

"Better than anyone else Korolyov understood how important it was to open the space era," Grechko said. "The Earth had just one moon for a billion years and suddenly it would have another, artificial moon!"

Soon after blastoff from the arid steppes of the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, the satellite sent out what would be the world's most famous beep. But the engineers on the ground didn't immediately grasp its importance.

"At that moment we couldn't fully understand what we had done," Chertok recalled. "We felt ecstatic about it only later, when the entire world ran amok. Only four or five days later did we realize that it was a turning point in the history of civilization."

Immediately after the launch, Korolyov called Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to report the success. Khrushchev's son, Sergei, who was alongside his father at the moment, recalled that they listened to the satellite's beep-beep and went to bed.

Sergei Khrushchev said that at first they saw the Sputnik's launch as simply one in a series of Soviet technological achievements, like a new passenger jet or the first atomic power plant.

"All of us — Korolyov's men, people in the government, Khrushchev and myself — saw that as just yet another accomplishment showing that the Soviet economy and science were on the right track," the younger Khrushchev, now a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, said in a telephone interview.

The first official Soviet report of Sputnik's launch was brief and buried deep in Pravda, the Communist Party daily. Only two days later did it offer a banner headline, quoting the avalanche of foreign praise.

Pravda also published a description of Sputnik's orbit to help people watch it pass. The article failed to mention that the light seen moving across the sky was the spent booster rocket's second stage, which was in roughly same orbit, Chertok said.

The tiny orbiter was invisible to the naked eye.

Excited by the global furor, Khrushchev ordered Korolyov immediately to launch a new satellite, this time, to mark the Nov. 7 anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

"We didn't believe that you would outpace the Americans with your satellite, but you did it. Now you should launch something new by Nov. 7," Korolyov quoted Khrushchev telling him, according to Grechko.

Working round-the-clock, Korolyov and his team built another spacecraft in less than a month. On Nov. 3, they launched Sputnik 2, which weighed 1,118 pounds. It carried the world's first living payload, a mongrel dog named Laika, in its tiny pressurized cabin.

The dog died of the heat after a week, drawing protests from animal-lovers. But the flight proved that a living being could survive in space, paving the way for human flight.

The first Sputnik beeped for three weeks and spent about three months in orbit before burning up in the atmosphere. It circled Earth more than 1,400 times, at just under 100 minutes an orbit.

For Korolyov there was bitterness as well as triumph. He was never mentioned in any contemporary accounts of the launch, and his key role was known to only a few officials and space designers.

Leonid Sedov, a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences with no connection to space program, was erroneously touted in the West as the Father of Sputnik. Korolyov, meanwhile, was only allowed to publish his non-sensitive research under the pseudonym "Professor K. Sergeyev."

Khrushchev rejected the Nobel committee's offer to nominate Korolyov for a prize, insisting that it was the achievement of "the entire Soviet people."

Sergei Khrushchev said his father thought singling out Korolyov would anger other rocket designers and hamper the missile and space programs.

"These people were like actors; they would all have been madly jealous at Korolyov," he said. "I think my father's decision was psychologically correct. But, of course, Sergei Korolyov felt deeply hurt."

Korolyov's daughter, Natalia, recalled in a book that the veil of secrecy vexed her father. "We are like miners — we work underground," she recalls him saying. "No one sees or hears us."

The Soviet Union and the rest of the world learned Korolyov's name only after his death in 1966. Today his Moscow home, where Chertok met reporters, is a museum in the chief scientist's honor.

Chertok was permitted to travel abroad only in the late 1980s, after Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev liberalized the Soviet Union.

The surviving leaders of the space program are no longer anonymous or silent, and revel in the accolades so long denied them.

"The rivalry in space, even though it had military reasons, has pushed the mankind forward," said Valery Korzun, a cosmonaut who serves as a deputy chief of the Star City cosmonaut training center. "Our achievements today are rooted in that competition."

In the end, it was the Americans who won the race to the moon, nearly 12 years later. Khrushchev wasn't interested in getting there, his son says, and the effort made under his successor, Leonid Brezhnev, was underfunded and badly hampered by rifts between Korolyov and other designers.

"We wouldn't have been the first on the moon anyway," Grechko said. "We lost the race because our electronics industry was inferior."

Today, even as Sputnik recedes into the history books, its memory still exercises a powerful grip. In August, when a Russian flag was planted on the sea bed at the North Pole, the Kremlin compared it to Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon — an indication, perhaps, of how much Russians still treasure that first victory in space.



TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: coldwar; korolyov; r7; rocket; russia; soviet; sovietunion; space; spacerace; sputnik; ussr
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Photo

Jay Walker poses with his Sputnik satellite in his Ridgefield, Conn., home Friday, Sept. 28, 2007. The satellite, which Walker says is neither a model nor a replica, is one of the Sputnik satellites built by the Soviets in 1957. He says he acquired the satellite through a listing on eBay. (AP Photo/Bob Child)

Photo

Jay Walker poses with his Sputnik satellite in his Ridgefield, Conn., home Friday, Sept. 28, 2007. Walker says that he acquired the spacecraft, which he says is one of the original Sputniks built by the Soviets in 1957 and is neither a model nor a replica, through a listing placed on eBay by a pilot who frequently flew the Moscow route. Walker is the executive producer of the documentary film 'Sputnik Mania' that is being brought out in connection with the 50th anniversary of the launch of the original Sputnik on Oct. 4, 1957. Walker is the founder of Priceline.com. (AP Photo/Bob Child)

Photo

Graphic and illustration on Sputnik 1, the world's first satellite that was launched by Russia on October 4, 1957.(AFP Illustration)

Photo

Sputnik 1 -- the world's first artificial satellite -- was launched in 1957 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.(AFP/TASS)

1 posted on 09/30/2007 8:40:35 PM PDT by Stoat
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To: Stoat

Yuri Gagarin, the russian astronaut, was a hero


2 posted on 09/30/2007 8:42:39 PM PDT by Tennessee Nana
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To: Stoat

bfl


3 posted on 09/30/2007 8:48:31 PM PDT by shield (A wise man's heart is at his RIGHT hand;but a fool's heart at his LEFT. Ecc 10:2)
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To: Stoat

Sounds like they “awakened a sleeping giant” into a development surge that they couldn’t match, especially from a cost perspective.


4 posted on 09/30/2007 8:52:00 PM PDT by LZ_Bayonet (There's Always Something.............And there's always something worse!)
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To: Tennessee Nana

You’re absolutely right about Gagarin. And now, after hearing about it since I was a kid, I feel sad for the dog, who didn’t know what was going on as he was trapped up there.


5 posted on 09/30/2007 8:53:30 PM PDT by Moonmad27
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To: Stoat
But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far
from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West.

Thats ok, look where it made America go. America always needs a challenge to go beyond imagination.

6 posted on 09/30/2007 8:53:56 PM PDT by MaxMax (God Bless America)
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To: Stoat

Great article, thanks for sharing.


7 posted on 09/30/2007 8:59:46 PM PDT by dragnet2
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To: Stoat

I remember all of our family standing out in the yard watching that little spot of light move across the heavens.

So it was only a second stage booster it was still facinating!


8 posted on 09/30/2007 9:02:44 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (("democrat" 'one who panders to the crude and mindless whims of the masses.'))
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To: Stoat
Two points stand out:

1) The Communists lied and exaggerated, aided by the mainstream press.

2) Notice the Kruschev's son is in a position at an Ivy League school?

Cheers!

9 posted on 09/30/2007 9:03:39 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: MaxMax
Read a little further:

the world's first orbiter was born out of a very different Soviet program: the frantic development of a rocket capable of striking the United States with a hydrogen bomb.

10 posted on 09/30/2007 9:14:57 PM PDT by LibFreeOrDie (L'Chaim!)
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To: LZ_Bayonet
Sounds like they “awakened a sleeping giant” into a development surge that they couldn’t match, especially from a cost perspective.

And thank goodness they did......from the article:

As described by the former scientists, the world's first orbiter was born out of a very different Soviet program: the frantic development of a rocket capable of striking the United States with a hydrogen bomb.

Because there was no telling how heavy the warhead would be, its R-7 ballistic missile was built with thrust to spare — "much more powerful than anything the Americans had," Georgy Grechko, a rocket engineer and cosmonaut, told AP.

The Leftist apologists and appeasers would have been delighted if we had grabbed our ankles after Sputnik and had believed their lies about how the Soviets were no threat and they wanted only to be our friends....the Commies were ready, willing and able to turn American cities into a radioactive wasteland.

Remember when Khrushchev said "We will bury you!" ?

He meant it.

11 posted on 09/30/2007 9:19:53 PM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: dragnet2
Great article, thanks for sharing.

I'm delighted that you've enjoyed it, and you're quite welcome!  :-)

12 posted on 09/30/2007 9:21:39 PM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
I remember all of our family standing out in the yard watching that little spot of light move across the heavens.

It must have been both magical and awe-inspiring as well as terrifying, considering the demonic source of that little white spot of light.

So it was only a second stage booster it was still facinating!

Agreed....the booster was in a similar orbit as the Sputnik so it makes little difference.

13 posted on 09/30/2007 9:28:31 PM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: Stoat

The oldest man made satellite in orbit, Vanguard 1, was designed by my father.
http://www.lindahall.org/events_exhib/sputnik/sputnik_roger.shtml


14 posted on 09/30/2007 9:35:26 PM PDT by Richard from IL
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To: Richard from IL

How nice it is. 14 posts and none of the usual jerks have posted inane comments in their adolescent attempts at humor.


15 posted on 09/30/2007 9:45:44 PM PDT by Buffalo Head (Illigitimi non carborundum)
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To: grey_whiskers
Both points are correct.

If their first attempt at human space flight had ended in death for the occupant of the vehicle, then we would not have heard of it until now.

Gagarin also did not land with his craft. The Russians did not have the technology (or the confidence!) in their vehicle to insure that the occupant in the craft would land safely. At a predetermined altitude, Gagarin was ejected from the craft and parachuted to earth. The Russians continued to use this type of “safe landing” system for a number of years until they employed a better way to slow down returning craft by a means of parachutes and rockets that fired just prior to touchdown.

16 posted on 09/30/2007 9:47:15 PM PDT by Mr. Jazzy (Very Proud Dad of LCpl Smoothguy242 USMC of 1/3 Marines, now fighting for freedom, on duty in Iraq.)
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To: Richard from IL; All
The oldest man made satellite in orbit, Vanguard 1, was designed by my father.

WOW!  That's tremendous!

A graduate of Middlebury College with a degree in physics, Mr. Easton has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his technical achievements. Most notably, in 2006 President Bush awarded Mr. Easton the prestigious National Medal of Technology at a White House ceremony for his work with spacecraft tracking and GPS.

And congratulations as well!

I'm sure that you're aware of this site, but others here might not be.  I found it interesting because it continuously tracks how many orbits Vanguard 1 has made as well as how many miles it's traveled since launch.

VANGUARD 1 SATELLITE HISTORY

17 posted on 09/30/2007 9:47:52 PM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: Stoat
What's amazing is that the R-7 launcher rocket that was designed in the 1950's is still operational today in an updated form as a satellite launcher! The Russians still use it to launch the current generation Soyuz TMA spacecraft that regularly visits the International Space Station. And this launcher rocket will soon operate from ESA's launch site Kourou in French Guiana.
18 posted on 09/30/2007 9:51:43 PM PDT by RayChuang88
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To: RayChuang88
What's amazing is that the R-7 launcher rocket that was designed in the 1950's is still operational today in an updated form as a satellite launcher! The Russians still use it to launch the current generation Soyuz TMA spacecraft that regularly visits the International Space Station. And this launcher rocket will soon operate from ESA's launch site Kourou in French Guiana.

Wow....that is indeed astonishing, I hadn't heard that before.

I suppose it may be because during the Cold War, the Soviets were perhaps madly and frantically trying to catch up with us in other areas, and so new R&D for lifting rockets had to be put on the back burner ?  Particularly when they already had one that worked, a new model may have been difficult for them to justify to their Kremlin bosses.

Considering that the SR-71 Blackbird was a 1950's vintage design and was only retired from service a few years ago, it makes me wonder what's been going on in those secret aerospace research labs for all this time......


19 posted on 09/30/2007 10:01:30 PM PDT by Stoat (Rice / Coulter 2008: Smart Ladies for a Strong America)
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To: Buffalo Head
You mean like the fact an even more momentous event happened just 44 days later? I was born!

I’m not laughing though. It makes me feel kind of old!

20 posted on 09/30/2007 10:08:44 PM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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